Who Should Use Shopify and Shopify SEO over Amazon?

Having choices for your e-commerce platform is a cool luxury online these days. Knowing which platform to select for your online store can be a bit more challenging indeed. Shopify and Shopify SEO are hitting heavy in the e-commerce realm, and more and more biz owners have jumped on the Shopify bandwagon.

As a small business launcher or owner, you’ll certainly want to leverage every app, website theme, and user experience enhancer to bring more traffic to your store. Plus, if you can generate high-volume conversions while saving as much money as possible, so much the better.

Check out our comparison between Shopify and Amazon to make sure you’re choosing the right platform for your unique online storefront.

Romain Berg is a comprehensive digital marketing agency based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We help local and global businesses increase traffic and conversion with SEO, content, and a full host of related services. Above all, we win for your business with results, not hype.

What’s the difference?

You can think of Amazon as like you are going to a busy farmers’ marketplace. There are tons of booths and a huge array of fresh fruits, veggies, and meats, as well as assorted wares to purchase.

You’ll likely get a bunch of vendors selling the same stuff a few spaces apart from each other, but who cares? The volume of visitors is so high that there are enough customers for every farmer there to sell out of potatoes.

With Amazon, you’ll get millions of users searching for literally everything they need. Your products will be shown amongst a sizable list of competitors’ products. But, with that much traffic, you’ll still probably come out ahead in sales due to sheer customer volume.

With Shopify, it’s more like you’re visiting a main street, stand-alone boutique with a carefully curated product list, specific to the boutique brand. And, Shopify can and does accommodate many different brand scaling levels, from the Big Guys to the latest niche start-up.

Where Amazon benefits vendors with its ridiculous traffic, Shopify lets you hone into your brand and get super-specific about how and to whom you promote your products. You build your store from scratch with wide range templates, apps, and more. Here’s a taste of what’s available on Shopify:

App integration

Logo Maker

Multi-channel selling

Abandoned cart recovery

Inventory system

Tax Calculation

Shipping solutions

Both companies have shipping solutions. Amazon uses FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon.) You ship all your orders to Amazon, and they make sure your products arrive at your customers’ homes quickly and hopefully accurately.

Of course, you’ll pay a fee for this service, but it could be worth it to avoid shipping orders yourself if you don’t love that task.

Shopify Collaborates with Oberlo in support of dropshipping to make life easier for its vendors. Of course, there are fees for many of the integrated services or apps, but it’s up to you to determine which add-ons will make sense for your business model.

How much do Shopify and Amazon cost?

When you use the reach of Amazon, you’ll pay for it. From fulfillment fees, inventory storage, subscriptions, to per-item charges, the cost of using Amazon can add up pretty fast.

Shopify has a dedicated payment gateway that doesn’t charge transaction fees (Shopify Payments.) However, if you want to accept PayPal, credit cards, or Amazon Pay, you’ll pay a variable transaction for each payment method.

Even though you get a 14 day free trial with Shopify, you’ll also pay a subscription fee–there are several different tiers to consider. Plus, if you add any Shopify apps to your site, you could pay extra fees for them as well.

Shopify SEO: Use best practices to get seen

Though Amazon will show your products to a ready-to-purchase audience, the competition is fierce. Your items will be listed next to literally hundreds of competitors, including Amazon’s in-house brands. Who wants that kind of stress?

With Shopify, you get to build out your store, your voice, and your brand footprint from the ground up, which includes your SEO. Here are a few SEO basics to consider when building your Shopify store website:

Begin with the user experience in mind. Your products should be easy to search, find, and click on your website. Avoid creating too much hierarchy in your product categories.

It pays to get help with your decision

If you’re still struggling to decide which e-commerce platform will boost your online store the best and how to optimize your SEO for online sales, see Romain Berg for help.

We’ll help you determine which e-commerce platform is best for your business based on your goals and scale. Whether you’re growing an existing store or launching a brand-new brand, peering into the future of where you want to go can help you decide which platform best fits your needs right now.

Plus, with our superior SEO services, we can help you grab the best visibility in a ready-to-purchase audience. We’ll make sure you can leverage the benefits of Shopify or other e-commerce resources as you proceed with competence and confidence.

Contact us today to help you expertly launch your online store from day one. We’ll help you increase your traffic and conversions with no hype.